


Only God Knows

by nikatsu



Category: Cheon Sang Ji Hee, DBSK | Tohoshinki | TVfXQ | TVXQ, So Nyuh Shi Dae | Girls' Generation
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - 1930s, F/M, Gangsters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-04
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-03-05 09:00:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3113936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nikatsu/pseuds/nikatsu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Our story was in the background until it wasn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Thieves

He finds there is no proper way to go around it.

A year in the Family doesn’t make him any better than the others who comes in after his induction. In the great scheme of these, he knows he’s nothing but a maggot in the hive. No matter how many jobs he fills or thumbs he breaks, Changmin knows he’s still the ingénue.

A simpering rookie who doesn’t know any better. A lowly neophyte waiting to break away from his year-long initiation. The fucking virgin sacrifice in the gritty filth of the Underground Empire until the time comes and he’s asked to do something about it.

Part of him longs for that moment to come quick. He longs for _the job_ to be assigned to him so he won’t have to live with waiting each day for the other shoe to drop and he’s marked as unnecessary—offed and dumped by the city’s pier. He wants to embrace the darkness he’s chosen to serve, to accept that this is the life he’s living…

But the other part, the boy in him, wishes it won’t have to happen and never will. The boy in him fears the day he will have to dirty his hands for the sake of being a part of something he’s always been unsure of from the very beginning.

Changmin doesn’t know which part will win. Whether he’ll continue to live the lies of his occupation or accept the truth of his crimes.

Either way, his future is no longer in his hands.

 

* * *

 

Fourteen million won worth of stocks gets stolen from underneath the Family and disappears into thin air. It’s clear the second the patriarch Boss Kwon Je-Chul calls a meeting that there’ll be hell to pay if the thief isn’t caught.

Changmin doesn’t quite understand why it matters so much if the stolen money rarely makes a dent in the Family’s overall stocks but he dismisses his disinterest as a consequence of his being so _new._ He keeps his head the whole meeting long, only raising his head once in awhile when the room speaks in unison, saying “Yes, sir” with quiet but feigned conviction that he almost believes it.

 _Fourteen million won gone and counting,_ he thinks as he walks out of the room with the rest. Head still down as the older, more ruthless members begin to assign tasks. He waits in case his name is called and then leaves when it isn’t, both quietly angry and grateful to be out in the shadows still.

He smirks to himself, leaving quickly to clue a superior in and run his other errands for the day. He has pawn shop owner to bully into paying for product today and other responsibilities to oversee. T’was the life of a rookie gang member. Of being invisible.

 _Still a rookie._ Changmin muses as he turns the key on the ignition, _a rookie until the day I’m not._

 

* * *

 

His run as lowly recruit ends with a few simple words.

“I’ve heard a lot about you, Shim Changmin.”

It’s a much loaded statement than it sounds. But when it’s spoken to people on the inside, it doesn’t mean as much as it should. Changmin doesn’t look up from where he’s seated, polishing the barrel of his revolver with slow deliberate strokes. He knows well enough not to comment when the right-hand man of the Boss, a man they know as Jung Yunho, comes around to check on the lower ranked members. It could mean only two things—and unless he’s actually moving up the ladder, Changmin doesn’t put much faith in a hired gun’s sense of humor if he quips in usual sarcastic manner.

“Hey.” He can feel Yunho’s presence beside him, tall and foreboding, and represses the urge to run when he feels a heavy tap on his shoulder. “Come on, get up. Let’s take a walk.”

Changmin moves to stand quietly with a nod, gathering his gun back into its place. He clears his throat and braves a look at his superior, taking the image of who it is exactly that may as well be his Reaper. He asks, “Am I going to die now?”

He expects a snarl or a smirk, but what he gets is a loud, booming laugh and a friendly clap on his shoulder instead.

“Not today.” Yunho replies with a grin and Changmin thinks he might have just moved a step up.

 

* * *

 

He gets to know Yunho and realizes he’s not much different from the man than he’d originally thought.

Yunho is surprisingly kind-hearted. Merciful in the way members of the Kwon Family Mob is not known for. Changmin had been assigned to enough jobs with him now to know that the Kwon’s so-called right hand was a gentler being than the rest of those who held power. He was still dangerous. Ruthless even when the moment calls for it, but Yunho was also lenient with his targets, choosing to let them explain themselves before passing judgment.

He never once pulled the trigger at someone who didn’t have a viable alibi. It took more work, of course, but it was a method Changmin much more preferred than the usual.

“Every person deserves a chance.” Yunho tells him one day after the thief Je-Chul had tasked to find is found guilty of embezzling funds from the family and beating his wife. He’d ordered the man to be beaten within an inch of his life before being shot in the head, execution style, while Changmin shuffles the man’s wife and unborn child safely out of the city.

“Our occupation might inspire hate and fear but it doesn’t always have to end in bloodshed…”

Changmin snorts, putting his feet up on the table. The target’s office was being cleaned of evidence now that the carnage was over by the lower ranked members. A task he remembers doing only a few weeks ago. “Unless it has to,” he finishes, throwing Yunho a look.

The older man shrugs, leaning back against his chair. A cigarette dangled from his lips as he lit it. He inhales deeply, savoring the taste of nicotine filling his lungs. “I gave him a chance and he blew it four-fold.” He says, breathing out a puff of smoke, and then adds a moment later,

“Sometimes the cruelest acts are the most kind.”

It’s in that moment that Changmin realizes that Yunho has become his friend.

 

* * *

 

He dreams about _the before_ … sometimes, almost always, when the jobs he runs becomes redundant and dissolves into just shameless schoolyard bullying. He dreams about the tiny one room apartment he’d grown up in with his weak mother and even weaker siblings. He dreams about the fire that consumed the building where he lived, about how he’d stood and watched the flames engulf wood and stone as a young teen.

Changmin has never met his father… or any other family after the accident. None that he needed to know, being eighteen and able to live on his own as he wished.

He remembers how he first stumbled upon the boss, Kwon Je-Chul, while working as a bus boy and being offered to join in on the business of the family the whole city secret feared out of sheer need of a stable income. Je-Chul had called him _smart-looking—a compliment if he’d ever heard one and he hasn’t. At least not from anyone who matters._

He dreams about _the before_ , and sometimes wishes he could go back and refuse. Because he’s never imagined he’d be wielding a gun before he’s legally able to drink. His own modern version of a knight whose hands are stained of the blood of the villagers he’s been order to pillage and attack…

But then he gets over it, lays back and closes his eyes.

The next day, he’s breathing easier than the night before.

 

* * *

 

Yunho takes him weeks later to a fairly posh night club, _god bless him,_ out a little ways from the other members’ usual stomping grounds and introduces him to a fair few of their colleagues in the higher up. He is cordial in his introductions; nodding here and there and responding when Yunho finally pulls him away and gets them a table and asks surprisingly easy questions about his life before joining the business and what he plans to do after (whenever that may come).

It’s the most quiet of a night out he’s had in a while, something Changmin appreciates foremost and when he tells Yunho so, all he says is “There’s more to life than the business.” He finds this odd coming from someone who’s lived his life in the Underground but decides against commenting. He doesn’t need to know if he shouldn’t, that hasn’t changed.

At some point in the evening, the owner—a beautiful woman, not much older than him—comes by to greet them, slipping on Yunho’s lap with a sultry smile as she sips at a martini in her hands. She tells him her name is Lina and winks when he feels his cheeks warm at the brush of her ankle down his calf. “Don’t worry, kid, I won’t bite unless Yunho says I can,” she says, shimmying her hips and teasing a groan out of Yunho’s lips before hopping off and down his lap. Lina laughs as Yunho frowns at her, taking a long swig from his glass before grabbing her just as she’s about to escape and pulls her with him to the back of the crowded club.

Changmin feels a little winded when they disappear, leaving him slack-jawed in shock at how quickly that moment of heat and sex between Yunho and the night club owner transpired. His embarrassment had more to do with what the moment meant between the gangster and the hired woman rather than the actual act of them having sex. He was no virgin. He knew the ways of fucking better now than when he was thirteen and first realizing his sexual needs. It was just that Changmin couldn’t imagine having to fulfill the need with someone who made a living out of selling her body. His need for intimacy winning out and ruling over the very primal urge to rut. He doesn’t think he could get any _real pleasure f_ rom that—not when at times he still shook in fear and disgust at what his job made him do.

“Don’t worry about it. Lina’s clean and one of the very best.” Jaejoong, the Boss’s left-hand and Yunho’s oldest friend, tells him when Changmin manages to look away from where the couple disappeared to. He had two women flanked at either side of him, nuzzling close and pressing their breasts against him, when he adds, “Yunho’s her patron. No one’s allowed to touch her when he’s around and he’s here at least four nights a week.”

“And _that_ makes it better?” He tried to bite it back but the words came off more accusing than he’d hoped it would be.

Jaejoong shrugs, eyes flashing for a split second at his incredulous tone, “Did you think it could possibly mean more?”

Sighing aloud, Changmin shakes his head to rid him of his current thoughts—turning back to his drink and swallowing it in one gulp before moving to leave. It was still an adjustment—this life he chose. It still needed time to sit better for him in the pit of his stomach. It was better to get through each day one at a time and not all at once.

So he really didn’t need to stay and wait for the afterglow of Yunho’s tryst, even though Yunho had driven him there and this part of town was unknown to him. Changmin figures that at the moment, he is better off walking home alone.

 

* * *

 

Changmin winds up getting lost, of course, but he doesn’t stay that way for long.

“You’re new to this part of town, aren’t ya?” Someone says behind him, giggling while he stood scrutinizing a street sign. Changmin half-turns to the source of the voice, taking in the sight of a woman looking almost barely his age in too high heels and a tight red dress. She has a mangled fur coat on, hanging from her this shoulders, which she pulls closer together as she joins him under the lamp post to look up at the sign. The proximity of her makes the space between them feel warmer than it should be and when she points to her right with her free hand, cocking an eyebrow at him in amusement, Changmin hadn’t even noticed she’d begun talking again.

“If you’re looking for the main road, it’s that way.” She tells him, tilting her head into the direction of the right road. Her eyes practically twinkles when their gazes meet, shooting a rush of heat through his spine. “You should find the circle just fine if you go straight ahead. That street’s better lit than this one.”

“Thanks…?”

But she’s already walking away before he can fully respond, his eyes following the sway of her hips as she moves to step inside a car that had pulled up a few feet away. It’s after she turns back to him again, throwing him a sultry wink and a flying kiss, that he realizes he’d been staring after her long after she had been driven off.

The part of him that still believes in the good in his soul immediately regrets not waiting for Yunho at the club as he trudges home.

(The other part, the most part, wishes he’d run after her.)

 

* * *

 

Later, at home, he doesn’t dream about the past.

Instead he dreams of red and silk and a sly seductive smile and wakes to sweat, a warm stiffness and confusion.

Changmin doesn’t go back to sleep. He stays awake for the rest of the night.

 

* * *

 

“You left before I got back.”

Yunho drops by unannounced the next day, putting his feet up on his tiny living room table without taking off his shoes. Changmin glares at him sleepily, slamming the door shut before slumping down on the opposite end of the couch. He was exhausted from the night before, reasons why he’d still rather not think anymore than he has to in the light of day.

“Good morning, Changmin. How are you today?” He greets sarcastically, pushing Yunho’s feet off the table. He rubs a hand over his face, yawning loudly. “So sorry for barging in at 6AM! Thought I’d drop by on your day off and bring you breakfast!”

He gets a pillow tossed to his head after that.

“Do I look like I’d bring breakfast to anyone?”

“ _Exactly._ Do you see the problem here?” Changmin shoots back, burying his head into the cushion.

“You’re hilarious.” Yunho deadpans, but then his expression turns serious. “I heard from Jaejoong that you didn’t think much of the arrangement Lina and I have.”

Changmin shrugs. “I don’t have much of an opinion on anything.”

“Except you _actually_ do.” He retaliates, leaning forward on his elbows. “Lina’s a good source for intel. The family’s underground reach is wide because of people on the inside like her. Her club’s client base is large and varied. She’s good to have on our side.”

Yunho pauses, sighing as Changmin raises an eyebrow, waiting for him to continue, “It just so happens she likes me.”

“So what you’re saying is that it’s a win-win situation?”

“You’re not in any position to judge me.” The older man smirks, more amused than he is put out. It’s almost as if he’s expected this kind of response. As though he’s heard it a thousand times before and just doesn’t care. “I won’t deny that I don’t enjoy it. To be honest it’s one of the easiest parts of the job. I’m not afraid to admit that I want her when I decide I do. We both know and respect the score between us. Nothing more or less. Sex is as much her weapon as it is mine.”

Changmin wonders if that is how Yunho got to survive the brutality of being expendable minions in the game of power and greed. He wonders if this is how Yunho did to get where he is, without remorse or regret marring the hard planes of his face.

Yunho’s voice is firm when he speaks again, staring at him hard. Waiting for him to react, to flinch, to protest. Changmin isn’t sure but in that moment he feels his seniority over him. The boss had made Yunho his right hand for a reason, and if this moment is any indication of how dangerous he can be then Changmin won’t ever question it again.

“This is what we do: we lie, cheat, steal and on occasion, kill. There’s no way to sugarcoat the business. I suggest you accept this sooner rather than later.”

 

* * *

 

The next time Yunho brings him to the club, he turns a blind eye towards the illicit way Yunho and Lina exchange information. He’s only let in on it a week after Yunho visited him at his home; about how Yunho is trying to find the snitch leaking valuable information to an enemy gang regarding the cover for several shell companies the Kwon family uses to hide their finances. And how he’s tasked to be the one to exterminate the rat once and for all.

This is the moment he’s been waiting for. And each day that passes without leads to answers only means another nail is pounded onto his coffin. The task is worth life or death, _in or out._ This is the job that will determine his faith.

Yunho had told him then that to be in the family means to relish bloodshed.

And Changmin will, _at least,_ he thinks he will.

(He tries not to worry about the way his hands still tremble when he reaches for his gun every morning.)

He has to.

 

* * *

 

Changmin leaves when Yunho makes it clear he has plans for the rest of night and gets a ride home with one of the others that came along with them to the club.

The car passes by the street where he’d stood lost in the night; where he’d met the woman in red who has invaded his dreams as of late. He tries not to crane his neck and look around, trying to see if she were by but to no avail. _She might as well be a mirage, h_ e thinks, annoyed with himself for caring.

Later he would lay in his bed and think of her again. Of her in her tight red dress and mangy coat. Of her glittering eyes, her wink and her smile. He would think of the heat he’d felt in her presence, strong and heady, of how he had wanted to reach out and grasp her. Touch her. Make her… _what?_

 _She’s trouble,_ his mind groans as he takes himself in his hand and strokes. _S _he’s trouble. She’s trouble. She’s trouble. She’s trouble.__ The mantra plays on his head in time with his movements, jerking faster and faster as the image of her moves behind his eyelids. Girls like her are trouble. Women like her. This is the one thing I could never do. I’m not like the others. I could never—In his mind’s eye he sees her turn back to wink and smile before his vision blurs to white.

Changmin comes to one single thought.

_She’s trouble._

 

* * *

 

The fantasy spurs him on for the next couple of nights and a part of him feels sick of it.

Sick at himself for actually using the fantasy to please himself. Sick at finding himself walking by the same street over and over again late at night with no success. Sick to death at himself for wanting a woman he’d have to _pay to see again._

He should stop, he knows he should, but he can’t. Not if he can help himself. And he won’t.

_Not if there’s a possibility._

“You’re looking green, Shim.” Yunho asks as he drives them to the club—the fifth time this week. “You alright?”

“Yeah,” He replies, straining not to turn his head as they zoom past someone in red out on the street. His mind immediately conjures the image of his mystery woman and his pants instantly feel tight. Changmin winces, berating himself for the horrible timing. He licks his lips, suddenly parched and wishing this drive would go quicker.

“I’m fine.” He says, though the words sound less sure than they should, “I’m fine.”

 

* * *

 

He doesn’t stay for long once they park, only waiting until Yunho gets Lina alone and away from her ‘other clients’ before turning towards the exit. He doesn’t want to delude himself into thinking she’d actually be there after too many nights of fantasies and absolutely nothing in reality. But Changmin runs once he’s out the door—towards where and what he’s still not too sure he knows.

But he’s willing to try.

_One more night._

 

* * *

 

“Lost again? I remember telling you exactly where the main road is the last time I found you here.”

“I’m not even sure if I am looking for the main road this time, to be honest,” Changmin says, turning his head to look at the reason for his midnight stroll. She’s wearing that tight dress again, minus the coat, looking just like he remembers from many nights ago.

The woman smirks and shrugs, crossing her arms at the elbows beneath her breasts. She looked cold for a minute before straightening again, closer to him now that he could almost feel her breath. He figures she must feel the heat between them too, flowing freely within the short distance between their bodies.

“Well, it’s not good to stay out here too long. Dangerous and all that jazz.”

Changmin smirked in return, burying his hands deeper into his pockets. “I should say the same for you.”

“I can take care of myself. I work around here after all.” She replies succinctly, uncaring of what her words truly meant. She smiles wider when Changmin stills and considers himself for a moment before turning to face her fully. Her gaze is directed at him, unwavering and observing as well as he perused her—taking note of her long legs under her too-short dress, her slim waist, the cleavage peaking of the subtle V neckline and up to her face. Her face looks much younger in the light, he thinks, all doe-eyed and creamy skin. She was beautiful, he had to admit, prettier than he expected street-loitering women of the night looked. But then again, he had seen Lina—flirty, sexy, _one of the best Lina—_ at the club and she wasn’t what he’d expected either.

She looks… _interested,_ almost intrigued. Changmin wasn’t sure what to make of that expression on her face. Or the fact that his body was responding in ways he had had to reject every night he thought of her since meeting that first time.

“See anything you like?” She asks a beat later, taking a step closer. She watched him watch her as she wet her lips with her tongue and grinned seductively, “From my experience, no one walks around here at two in the morning and _not_ be looking for a little trouble.”

This girl was trouble. And while Changmin knows he shouldn’t entertain her any more than he already has—coming back _here f_ or the fifth consecutive time just to be able to perhaps catch a glimpse of her again—he found he can’t quite stop himself from responding again this time with a smirk to match hers. “I can take care of myself just fine, like you.”

She shrugs again, closer now than ever and reached out to lay a hand on his chest. The action altogether familiar and foreign as it presses down his shirt. Her warm, breathy, dulcet tone against his ear almost lulling him to submission, “I’m sure you can, but… you’re lost and I’m not.”

He looked at her, _really looked,_ and lost himself in the surprising depth of her eyes. They were alive, vibrant—open in a way he did not think he’d ever seen. It moved the part of him he’d been burying since a year and a half ago,

“Then lead the way.”

 


	2. Whores

A typical day at work for her starts at nine in the evening and continues on until the wee hours of the morning. Yoona hasn’t had to wait on the curb of any street since her eighteenth birthday. Her Madame and friend, Lina, had made sure of that when she took her under her wing. So she goes into the club at half-past eight and gets ready there, putting on her war paint and armor before facing the masses of heavy cologne clientele of _The Magnifica_.

On a good run, she earns at least fifty thousand won a night from entertaining her regulars and few extra others that come through the club. She takes her job as a hostess seriously, pouring alcohol, smiling and laughing at all the right moments. Leaning in to bat her eyelashes in just the right, sultry way that ensures a good profit for her and a satisfied customer more than willing to come back.

Lina has taught her well in the art of seducing a man out of pouring the contents of his wallet with just few sly touches. And because she’s been so good at it since coming to the club six years ago, she’s been able to sneakily choose whom to give her body to when she pleases. None of them are what _she wants_ but they are kind at best and that is all a whore can ask for.

Granted, it’ll never be ideal but it’s good money and puts food on the table. Yoona might take hours to shower when she gets home after but this is what life is for someone like her.

It’s enough of a future to live until she meets him and her heart comes to prick at her says “It isn’t”.

 

* * *

 

Her first impression when she encounters him on the street late at night is surprisingly good for someone who has given up on the quality of men who comes through her life.

Yoona likes that when she first sees him, she knows immediately that he towers over her even while wearing her highest heels. She likes that his skin is looks smooth and the right kind of tan that she fantasizes about. She likes that he is dressed semi-neatly—shirt tucked in but with a loose tie, pants that fit just right—and looks smart. She likes that his eyes stay on her face first and for the longest time before straying elsewhere. She likes that he sees her first and while confused, doesn’t seem to stutter at her presence or her obvious occupation.

She likes that he meets her gaze head on and follows her until she’s too far away to look back at him.

And she does, look back, even as the car she steps into drives away.

Yoona thinks of him the whole time she lays on her back and waits for her work day to be over.

 

* * *

 

She leaves and walks home just before the sun rises, pocketing the wad of bills inside an envelope her client stuck under an ashtray before he grunted himself to sleep. It’s about double her usual rate because he seems to like her a little too much, touching and kissing suspiciously closer to the one intimate part of her she refuses to share.

Yoona takes a long hot shower after her client drifts off, scrubbing hard at her skin under the hot spray until she’s pink and feeling raw all over. She dresses quietly and efficiently, stepping over anything that could wake the man sleeping a ways from her. She looks around briefly before her eyes catch sight of the jacket under her shoe and tiptoes towards it, picking the heel up with one hand while the other perused the lining of the jacket’s cloth.

Her client sleepily grumbles a few feet from her and Yoona stands up with a little smirk, pulling her skirt down and in place before moving to the door. Her arms wrapped tight around herself as she fights off the chill of the very early morning.

She drops an envelope down at the post-office an hour later, dressed in a formless dress and wide-brim hat, and then leaves without another look back.

 

* * *

 

_My life isn’t that bad. I’ve got a roof over my head. A steady income. And a friend I can trust.  This is the best I could ever imagine for myself from years ago._

It’s a mantra she says over and over again in her head. A reminder.

It is what works.

 

* * *

 

The rest of her day before the hours when she has to work is spent with her fluttering all over the small space she calls home. Arranging bits and pieces of the very few personal pieces of her past life she owns over and over again instead of catching up on her sleep.

She hasn’t slept well since she was sixteen and has learned early on not to hope for it to get better as the years goes by.

Lina calls to check in on her and those, she can say, has always been her favorite part of every day, “How are ya, darlin’?”

“Oh you know. Another day, another shower, another ten grand.”

“The bitch earns her keep.” The older woman’s melodic laughter filters in through the earpiece and Yoona allows herself to relax. It’s a joke they share like good friends do. _Like sisters._ “Soon enough you’ll earn as much as I did on my very best year if you keep it up.”

“You overestimate my charm, Lina,” Yoona tells her, nitpicking at her nails—the dark red polish chipped at the tips, “My client base could never match up to yours.”

Lina gasps, mock-offended but she could hear the amusement in her voice, “Are you calling me a slut, little Yoona? I oughta smack your pretty face right now!”

“Well, aren’t you?”

“Says the pot to the kettle.” Lina teases back and while Yoona is sleep-deprived and too young to be living her life this way, for these moments she accepts the reality.

“Someday, right?”

She can hear her nodding as Lina echoes her words, “Someday.”

 

* * *

 

The next few days blend together.

She shows up at the club promptly and walks home the next day. Leaves an envelope at the post.

Yoona wears her red dress and decides to frequent a street with few working lamp posts on her way back some nights (most nights) but doesn’t linger for long.

She earns her keep. Keeps her clientele wanting more even as the amount of gangsters frequenting _The Magnifica_ seem to double overnight.

Lina tells her not to mind it and smiles, winking and she follows dutifully like a good sister does.

Yoona lives to survive another day. And the day after. _And so on._

Her routine stays.

 

* * *

 

Until she gets home and it changes. _Alters._

Because **_he_** is in her thoughts again, bleeding into her consciousness even when she works to silence her mind.

It makes her feel dirtier than usual when she remembers his face, _his eyes_ , and it makes her ache to get clean again even after hours in the shower. It’s not a bad feeling per se, but it is a new, odd, strange feeling that leaves her feeling more vulnerable than she’s used to in the past years.

And Yoona should know because she hasn’t felt this helpless to her emotions since Lina took her in.

 

* * *

 

Yoona decides to do something about it when she comes home after the third night _after_ and nearly fails to _fake_ her way out of a client’s arms.

She strips, steps into her little tub and gets clean in one swoop before lowering a hand between her legs. She thinks of **_him_** , her stranger, and focuses on everything about him she likes.

 _Click._ The way he towers over her. _Click._ His smooth tan skin. _Click._ The loose tie hanging around his neck, his broad shouldered jacket. _Click._ His eyes. _Click._ His…

“Fuck.” The curse helplessly falls off her mouth as she shudders, warm and weak and extremely sated.

Yoona’s stomach blanches even as her body still shakes from her high. The feeling is odd and new and so fucking strange. The feeling is dangerous and she knows it.

But—

_…dips her hand between her thighs again…_

_—_ she can’t help herself.

 

* * *

 

Lina checks in right on schedule and for some reason, she deems to start to ask—

“Have you ever…”

“Hmm?”

 _Fallen in love at first sight?_ Her mind supplies and immediately disregards. Yoona shakes her head, wrapping her jacket as a blanket around herself.

“Nothing.”

The word is weighted and it shouldn’t be. But it’s out there, mumbled out from her lips and into the receiver of the telephone she clutches in her hand. Her bare walls seem to mock her as the seconds stretch on. Lina doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t push to ask what she means and Yoona feels relief that she won’t.

She trusts Lina to understand her when she herself cannot. It’s what sisters does.

“Someday.” Lina tells her and then they click off.

An hour later, as she collects her shoes and opens the door for another night at _The Magnifica_ , she wonders briefly if that _someday_ will ever come to whisk her away.

 

* * *

 

 _Someday_ surprises her on the night Lina tells her she should take a break, and it’s in Yoona’s belief that the world is playing tricks on her when she stumbles upon _her stranger_ wearing the exact same dress she had on the first time she saw him.

He stands under the same lamp post from nights before, towering over her the way she’s imagined him to on the days she lets herself go under. He is still dressed semi-neatly, white shirt tucked in under his dark coat, tie hanging loose around his neck—just begging to be yanked, to be pulled closer. She doesn’t yank or pull, but she does step closer. Her arms crisscrossed across her chest to keep from reaching out.

And oh god, she wants to. She really _really_ does.

They banter as though they’ve known each other for years instead of only seconds, flirting so naturally that the alarms go off in her head. The space between them growing closer as they speak, shortening with each syllable passed between their lips until the very heat of him emanates on her skin. It thrills her, to have him so close and when his eyes dip down ( _finally!_ ) to peruse her the way she had done to him earlier on, it only makes her giddier than ever.

“See anything you like? From my experience, no one walks around here at two in the morning and _not_ be looking for a little trouble.” Her tone is confident but there’s underlying challenge there, nipping at the seams as she wets her lips and bites. Yoona hopes he accepts and when he does (“I can take care of myself just fine, like you.”), she can’t help the shudder of excitement that snakes through her skin.

“I’m sure you can but… you’re lost and I’m not.”

Her stranger’s lips curl and smirks, his eyes lighting as it focuses on her—intrigued, _interested_ —and speaks, “Then lead the way.”

This feeling, _this arousal_ _for this mas_ , is odd and new and strange. It’s dangerous for someone like her to feel this way but she does.

And Yoona wants it more than she’s ever wanted anything in her life.

 

* * *

 

It probably wasn’t a very good idea to bring him home.

Yoona had had enough men clamoring for her company as it is, following her around even after her services were delivered promptly and exactly. She muses that it should be a compliment to her skill, to be able to keep so many men’s wandering eyes so focused on her when they couldn’t even keep them on their own wives. To have men offer her every luxury, promising charming things and freedom in exchange for another come-hither look and a sweet kiss on the mouth. She likes the attention—that much she admits, and she likes the sex just as well. But she isn’t greedy like the other girls on the streets. She only takes enough for what she needs, for her future.

She does her job and leaves. She doesn’t take anything home with her.

Until _he_ came along. Apparently her consciousness is willing to disregard her internal rules for this particular stranger she’s met only once before.

In retrospect, Yoona likes to think that it would have happened sooner or later. She’s been on the streets long enough to see this kind of _event_ happen. She’s known enough girls like her to believe that something as close to a happily-ever-after could exist for people like her to escape the life they’ve been living off of. To have some Prince Charming come along, sweep her off her feet and carry off far, far away… or at least out of this hellhole of an underground.

The most a woman like her could be _after_ is to be a mistress to some rich patriarch who only comes by once every few days until either the riches are gone or her novelty wears off. Whichever happens first.

It’s not much of a future, but it is a kind of freedom nonetheless. An escape from the grime littered along the red-light district. She'll take whatever she can if it means she could be free.

“So here it is... My humble abode.”

Yoona opens her arms wide in the middle of her tiny, bare single room apartment. It isn't much but it's home and it’s all hers. That is more than most of the girls she knows can say.

The man she brings home only smiles back when she turns to look at him, his eyes solely on her. Yoona doesn’t think he’s even notices any of the things she’s got lying around. Not her lumpy pull-out couch, her tattered curtains or her tiny living-cum-dining table sitting right smack dab in the center. It should be unnerving, the way this stranger tracks her movements, but Yoona doesn’t find it strange at all. Which in itself gives her a sense of alarm.

Not that she ever really listens to her flight response. Yoona’s always been proud to think of herself as a _stay-and-fight_ kind of girl.

She kicks off her shoes, backing away towards one of the tiny space, to the wall where her futon and thin rumpled blankets lay.

“Come here,” she whispers and she thinks it odd to be the one to ask for a man to come to her when it’s always been the other way around. The zipper of her dress slides down easily and seconds later the blood red fabric pools at her feet. Her voice is even softer now when he takes a step just as he shrugs his coat off. “I’ll make it worth your while…”

“Changmin,” he tells her, so close she can taste his breath. His gaze is dark, smoldering in the kind of heat she’s felt churning inside of her since the night their eyes first met. “And you…?”

It’s a mistake but she replies, honestly, “Yoona.”

Changmin nods, hands still as her own move to slide his tie off. His next words echoes hers and it’s the first time—in a very long time—that she believes a man’s words against her own.

“I’ll make it work your while, Yoona.”

He keeps his promise.

(And so does she.)

 

* * *

 

Yoona leaves an envelope at the post and leaves, burying herself inside a long dark coat too big on her shoulders.

She walks home, steps out of her plain shoes, slides the heavy jacket off and—

“Come back to bed.”

Yoona smiles and turns to look at Changmin sitting up on her futon, half-asleep with the blankets pooled around his waist. He reaches a hand out, grasps hers and pulls.

She follows.

A new routine starts.

 


	3. Cheaters

Suddenly it becomes comfortable to drive up with Yunho and the other members of the Family up to the Magnifica. Instead of fidgeting, Changmin walks along the dark, pulsing halls of the club with a sense of purpose in his every step. He no longer stays in one corner by himself, nor does he nurse a single drink the whole night until he’s finally allowed to leave. Now he acquaints himself with the regulars and consumes more than the one he orders from the get-go. He’s confident now, sure of himself. He’s become a man who knows what he wants overnight and moves purposefully towards it.

Or rather her for that matter. “My own little, sweet informant,” as he’s told his colleagues on the one time they ask. “If Yunho has Lina, I think it’s only fair I have my own.” Charming remembers saying, lying through his teeth because he knows that Yoona is so much more than just a body to warm his own.

He wants her explicitly and without hesitation. And if Yunho or anyone had noticed the more-than-usual possessive way he holds onto her on the nights they visit the club, none has mentioned anything to him.

Not that Changmin actually cares what they think. All he cares about is that Yoona stays with him when he’s there, ignoring her usual clients whoever the fuck they are.

 

* * *

 

(On the days when he is sent to do business out of town, Changmin makes sure to exhaust himself enough to fall into a deep sleep and excuse himself from going to the clubs his brothers decide to go to after.

He doesn’t let himself think of Yoona when he is away. Doesn’t dare try to think about who she entertains when he is absent. Doesn’t ask when he steps into his apartment and switches on the light.

He doesn’t ask because he doesn’t have to.

Yoona is always there, waiting.)

 

* * *

 

“You’re beginning to owe me money, baby.” Yoona tells him one night after a round of very enthusiastic sex in one of the Magnifica’s special rooms. Her hair was rumpled and tickling his chin as she lays her cheek on him and her finger traces circles around his belly. “My usual victims don’t want anything to do with me when you and your boys come ‘round. But it’s especially worse when you haul me off like that. You scare off my clientele every time!”

She doesn’t sound annoyed, but there’s an edge there that he can’t identify, hidden somewhere under the smooth and breathy lilt of her voice. A tone he knows she only uses with him. And in the quiet of the room, it comes in clear and loud in his ears. They hadn’t spoken when he came in; he’d just grabbed her and pulled her through a door, mouths fused and undressing as they went. It was one of those good, silent nights when the Family didn’t send him to do anything. A rare night off he’d decided not to waste on pleasantries and weak interrogation and instead acted on leading them into a tableau where they inevitably ended.

“They must be smart,” Changmin deadpans, pulling a hand out from under his head to run it down her cheek when she tilts her head up to him. He would stare at her forever if she ever let him. A quick look down at her lets him know she isn’t annoyed. And so he isn’t going to defend his actions, choosing to lie still with her in his arms. “They must be since they know better than to interrupt important business.”

Yoona laughs at that, shaking her head as she waves a hand between what little space is left between their bodies. He can smell their combined sweat in the quiet of the room, can feel it suctioning them closer with each small move she makes.

It makes him feel hot.

Everything about her does this to him.

“This is important business, huh? Businesses usually mean getting pay after a good service.” She says, smirking at him one of his hands begin to travel down the length of her naked back. He knows this kind of touch eases her, comforts her in such a way that makes her eyes go hazy and her breath thread. So he does it again sensually slow. Gentle squeezes on her nape, down the ridges of her spine to the soft globes of her ass.

She’s arching and slipping underneath him when he finally moves, wrapping her legs around his waist as he buries deep. Their breaths coming in soft gasps and grunts quickly as they moved together, so willing and in sync. Yoona’s eyes stay open with his the entire time, unnamed affection bleeding into their souls even as their hips jerk out of rhythm and they fall into oblivion.

“You don’t even pay me,” Yoona pouts once her breathing starts to calm. Her shaking arms are wrapped tight around his shoulders as Changmin tries to steady himself. The weight of her statement makes him push off and hover, staring down at her as the afterglow fades.

He knows that this is what she does. Knows that this is the type of service she provides. Knows that he isn’t the only one who has nestled in between her thighs tonight or all the other nights. He knows all of this but also (knows) hopes that she knows that it is more. For him, for her, for them.

It has to be.

“Did you want me to pay you?” He asks a beat later, watching her closely. Yoona’s eyes are luminous in the low light of the room, her skin stained pink with warmth and arousal as her breath hitches and then calms again. Their bodies still connected when he presses down at her, his tone even but just a hint uncertain. “Did you?”

Yoona leans up and catches his lower lip; pulling it between hers as her hands move to cup his cheek and tangle into his hair. Their kiss is long and passionate, brimming with all of the emotions they’ve never spoken. She gives all that she is capable and he reciprocates.

It’s not an answer but for Changmin, it is enough.

 

* * *

 

(The next time Changmin comes around, Lina tells him that Yoona has gone to meet several clients at their homes for the rest of the night. “They pay more when she comes to them,” she explains and red threads into his vision.

Lina is kind enough to ignore the hole he punches into a wall when he turns to leave.)

 


	4. Killers

“Changmin.” Her voice crackles over the phone line and he has to concentrate to hear her over the noise of wherever she was calling from.

Changmin makes a noncommittal sound in response, unwilling to speak when he had nothing good to say. She’d been radio silent since that first night he’d gone to The Magnifica and learned of her taking house calls, avoiding him as though he were the plague. Dodging his calls and slipping out of sight whenever he came around her dingy apartment. She’d had Lina cover her tracks and it had taken him a week of coming and going empty-handed to give up on his search.

If Yoona didn’t want to be found then Changmin decided he wasn’t going to look for her. He’d given up chasing after ghosts a long time ago and he wasn’t going to start again now.

“… Changmin?” She whispers again after a whole minute of silence and this time, he can clearly make out the fear in her voice. The vulnerability. It chokes him to hear it. “Please… are you there?”

“I’m here,” he replies finally, dropping behind his colleagues. He had just come from an assignment for the family; successful (all things considered) in ridding the Kwon family another one of their competitors but still failing at finding the source of the leak. Yunho notices him staying back but doesn’t call him over. Instead, he nods his understanding and leaves him in the dark quiet. Changmin’s grateful for this somehow. He repeats his response in a grunt. Like it was pulled out of him. Like he couldn’t help himself in pretending he wasn’t there, “I’m here, Yoona. Where are you?”

“Save me. Please.” Yoona cries, unable to keep calm anymore. He could hear her tears through her voice, wet and unrelenting. “Come and save me.”

He’s out the door before she could finish her sentence, stalking towards his car with his free hand fingering the gun in his side. Minutes later he’s halfway towards the city… seconds from where she is.

 

* * *

 

Yoona looks nothing like the sexy woman he’d loved and thought of since they’d met when Changmin finds her, finally, huddled inside a telephone booth.

Her red dress, his favorite, is ripped and dirt-sodden beyond repair. Her makeup smudged around her face, her lipstick bitten off and her mascara melting off along her tear-stained cheeks. From his vantage point he could see a number of bruises and scrapes along her pale limbs, marring her soft flesh in blacks and blues.

His vision tinging red at the thought of someone’s filthy hands bruising her skin. He feels the bite of rage and violence course through his veins, roaring to make someone— _anyone_ —pay but Changmin swallows it down as best he could. For her. _His Yoona_.

Yoona’s shaking all over but she reaches a hand out to him nonetheless, her fingers grazing the skin of his day-old stubbled cheek. She makes a sound of relief at the course feel of his whiskered face, tears wetting her eyes and it’s that sound that makes him tilt his head and kiss the inside of her scarred wrist. She doesn’t cry but her body does relax at the touch of his mouth. Changmin doesn’t need to her sob to know that a deep pain had been inflicted on her.

“Baby,” he murmurs the endearment tentatively. Because despite _everything_ , all is forgiven. His tall frame takes too much space inside the cramped phone booth but neither of them seem to mind, their eyes locking on each other. “Baby, I’m here. I found you.”

She grins, despite herself, her soft, aching reply tinted with emotion. “You did.”

 

* * *

 

Changmin takes her home—to his home—and there Yoona tells him everything.

She tells him about the money she’s systematically stolen from her employers. Money she _saved up_ , she argues, her smile weak but there all the same. She tells him about the money her family in the provinces owes and her daily walks in the morning were to the post office to send cash to a place she’d stopped calling home since she left it at thirteen. She tells him one of her clients followed her there one day and kidnapped her. She tells him that that client, a well-to-do doctor who liked her well enough before, had been raving mad as he accused her of bigger crimes she wasn’t privy to before he began screwing and beating her when it pleased him.

She doesn’t scrimp on the details. She tells her story simply, in an even tone that would have concerned Changmin if it were not for the tight hold she kept on his hand throughout the whole ordeal. The torture went on for days, weeks, Yoona wasn’t sure. But the moment the doctor had grown tired of her, he’d all but gone and dumped her on the street.

Yoona takes special care not to mention any names and Changmin doesn’t press for one. He doesn’t have to ask. He’ll find out one way or another anyway.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” Yoona whispers, staring at him while he dresses her wounds. He’d changed her out of her ratty dress and burned it with fire. His shirt covers her now and it’s already a lot nice than anything she’s ever owned. He’s always been better off than her, but it hasn’t dampened how much she wanted him.

“I hoped you’d come.” She doesn’t expect him to look at her when she speaks. But when he does, she feels incredibly grateful. “I missed you.”

“Why? I didn’t go anywhere.”

One corner of Yoona’s smile falters. “You know why.”

Changmin does know but he wants her to say it out loud. _He needs her to._ Because in the last few days he’d been without her, he’d been so close to becoming insane.

Yoona folds her hands over one of his and squeezes, letting the weight of his limb relax under her caress. Then she brought it up to her lips for a kiss so soft it was hardly anything. Except it was everything and more.

“I love you,” she says it simply, without pause or a crack in her voice. Her eyes don’t look away from his. Her fingers don’t shake. Yoona says it to him simply because she means it.

And then Changmin says it back, “I love you too.”

Because like her, he means it too.

 

* * *

 

Changmin goes the minute she falls into a deep sleep. Moving into the shadows with an ease he didn’t think he could ever possess. Yunho meets him around the corner, his eyes somber as he listens to his friend’s instructions.

“Are you sure about this?” He asks as he hands a parcel cover in brown paper. Changmin finds the weight of it comforting. “It should never be personal.”

“Not everything is about business.” He says and Yunho doesn’t say anything more.

Changmin moves with the shadows of the night. One minute he is there, in the next… gone.

 

* * *

 

_“I don’t know who’s been betraying the family, I swear! I don’t know anything! I don’t—Please don’t—”_

It takes just one bullet. And his body count rises another point before the new day breaks.

 

* * *

 

He’s home before he knows it. And Yoona is waiting up for him when he arrives, lying still on her side in his bed.

She doesn’t even blink when the lamp’s light fills the room and she sees him covered in dirt and blood. And if he smells rank at all, her nose doesn’t wrinkle. Not even as he stops right in front her, dropping the heavy gun on his side by the dresser beside his bed.

“You’re a mess.”

Changmin laughs. Strips his red-soaked shirt and throws it in the bin. Then he straddles her as she goes on her back.

“So are you.”

Yoona grins at that, her hands moving fast to unclasp his belt just as he pulled her face up to his. Their kiss rough, violent and copper-flavored.

It shouldn’t be enough.

But it is.


End file.
